1987-Annual Report - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Board of Selectmen account in the design and construction of the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway. 5. Housing. Arrange for the review, analysis and selection of possible sites for affordable rental housing. Encourage developers to consider con- struction of market rate and mixed income rental housing. Resolve remaining problems of Muzzey Condominium conversion. 6. Public Safety. Encourage LCC initiatives to improve pedestrian safety in Lexington Center. Support efforts of the police, youth commission and school administration to expand drug /alcohol awareness education and enforcement. 7. Technology. Reorganize the cable TV advisory committee and ask the committee to address prob- lems with the institutional trunk, residential transmission and servicing complaints. TOWN MANAGER RECRUITMENT In mid -April of 1987, Town Manager Robert M. Hutchinson informed the board that he had been of- fered the position of Registrar of Motor Vehicles of the Commonwealth and that he planned to accept the offer. In its meeting of April 27, the board accep- ted with regret Mr. Hutchinson's resignation, effec- tive June 30, and began a nationwide search for a new manager. The search consisted of four stages. The first step was to advertise the position during the month of May in national professional journals, in The Beacon of the Massachusetts Municipal Association and in the Boston press. This process elicited 135 applic- ations from 34 states. The next step was to have the personnel advisory board (PAB) review these applications and winnow them down to the 30 to 40 most promising ones. The PAB completed this task between late May and the end of June, having selec- ted 35 applications for closer scrutiny by a town manager search committee. In the meantime, the board had appointed a search committee under the chairmanship of attorney Susan Beck. The committee was given the job of choosing from the 35 applicants a small number of semifinal- ists for final review and selection by the board. The search committee consisted of nine Lexington residents chosen to represent a broad range of groups and interests in the town. During a ten week period from mid June to late August, they prepared and sent out questionnaires to the candidates and interviewed those who appeared to show the greatest promise. In early September they presented the selectmen with the names of eight semifinalists of whom four were seen as most outstanding. Three of these four finalists were town managers or town administrators from towns in the Boston subur- ban area. The fourth was Lexington's Assistant to the Town Manager. The selectmen conducted public interviews with each of the finalists on September 14 and 16, after which the board members made exten- 8 Overview sive reference checks on each candidate. In its meeting of September 28, the board took note of Lexington's good fortune in having four such highly qualified candidates from whom to chose and then put the appointement to a vote. Before the vote was taken, Selectmen Smith paid tribute to candidate Susan Adler who had been her first choice for the post, and then joined the other members of the board in a unanimous vote to appoint Richard White, the Town Administrator of Bedford, as Lexington's new town manager, at an annual salary of $65,000. The period of transition between the departure of Robert Hutchinson on June 30 and the assumption of his new duties by Richard White on November 16 was managed smoothly and efficiently by Acting Town Manager Susan Adler and the town staff. On June 17 the selectmen sponsored a farewell appreciation party for Bob Hutchinson and his family and on December 3, the board hosted a welcoming reception for Rick White and his family. FISCAL POLICY AND MANAGEMENT Revenue and expenditures. One of the first acts of the board in 1987 was to call a Special Town Meeting for February 2, to approve a FY87 supplementary appropriation of $450,000 for refuse collection and disposal. This was made necessary because actual amounts of trash generated as well as tipping fees had risen above prior estimates. The appropriation was approved. In looking ahead at the fiscal horizon for the town over the next several years, the board concluded that in FY88 it should be possible to meet from current revenues most, if not all, of the town's highest priority needs. Since it appeared that it would be more difficult to balance the town budget in FY89, and much more so in FY90, the board decided to recommend to town meeting the setting aside of a stabilization fund in the FY88 budget which could be used to ease financial pressures in succeeding years. This fund was part of an overall budget strategy to strengthen and rehabilitate the town's infrastructure, especially its roads and water mains. The selectmen recommended to the 1987 Town Meeting a lean budget for operating expenses and did not support three capital projects proposed for recreation, conservation and the library. The board also supported the town manager in his recommenda- tion that average salary increases be held at 5 percent for all departments. As a further aspect of this strategy the board asked the school committee to reduce its FY88 budget request by $300,000 or 1.3 percent. The school committee did not agree to this suggested cut and following several unsuccessful efforts to reach a budget total acceptable to both boards, decided to ask town meeting for the full amount of its budget request. The eventual outcome was a compromise on this issue, with town meeting voting to reduce the school budget by $150,000. In other respects, the town meeting generally supported the selectmen's budget recommendations but elected also to include capital items totaling $360,000 for